1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a terminal fitting which is mounted to a terminal accommodation chamber by being engaged with a lance which is elastically deformably provided in a connector housing.
2. Background Art
In order to increase a retaining force of a terminal fitting, a hooking margin of a lance to a front portion of a hole edge of an engaging hole may be increased by increasing a width dimension of the lance. However, since some of the terminal fittings have a stabilizer for stabilizing a posture of the terminal fitting which is projected on a rear end of an outer face of a connection part, there may occur a matter that the lance and the stabilizer are overlapped and interfered with each other when the lance with a large width as described above has substantially the same width over the entire length thereof.
A connector to solve such a problem is disclosed in JP-A-2005-259363, for example. As shown in FIG. 8, in this connector, a stabilizer 509 is projected on an outer face of a connection part 501 and intended to guide an insertion operation of a terminal fitting 507 through an insertion groove 505 provided on an inner wall of a cavity 503. A lance 511 is provided on the inner wall of the cavity 503. The lance 511 is provided with an engaging part 517 and an escape recess part 519. The engaging part 517 can be engaged over the substantially entire width of an engaged face 513 of a protrusion (not shown) and a front part 515 of a hole edge of an engaging hole (not shown), which are provided in the connection part 501. The escape recess part 519 is provided at a portion which is located in the rear of the engaging part 517 and overlapped with the engaging part 517 in a width direction. The escape recess part 519 is communicated with the insertion groove 505 to allow the stabilizer 509 to enter the insertion groove 505.
According to the above configuration, since the engaging part 517 of the lance 511 is engaged over the substantially entire width of the engaged part (the engaged face 513 and the front part 515 of the hole edge of the engaging hole (not shown)) provided in the connection part 501, the terminal retaining force is increased and therefore a structure having a strong shear resistance is achieved. On the other hand, since the lance 511 is provided with the escape recess part 519 which is provided at a portion that is located in the rear of the engaging part 517 and overlapped with the engaging part 517 in a width direction and which is communicated with the insertion groove 505 to allow the stabilizer 509 to enter the insertion groove 505, it is possible to avoid interference between the stabilizer 509 and the lance. Further, since it is not necessary to increase the width of the connection part 501 in order to avoid the interference, it is possible to avoid the increase in size of the connector.